


A Cold Touch

by foppishaplomb



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Mild Blood, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 10:29:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11895822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foppishaplomb/pseuds/foppishaplomb
Summary: Reaper makes a friend.





	A Cold Touch

**Author's Note:**

> so Apparently i ship this

Reaper’s footfalls echoed loudly around the abandoned Nepal Eco-Point. His breath clouded in front of his mask. It almost surprised him, the little reminder that he was still something approaching alive. His cloak and armor were more than warm enough against the icy mountain air, but even if they weren't, he doubted that it could kill him. Even he didn't know what could anymore.

Mei-Ling Zhou’s journals made her location easy to track. She, and the  _ monkey _ who suggested it, had obviously never considered someone would use them with ill intent. A rookie mistake that would have gotten her chewed out had she been in Blackwatch. She had only been a scientist. She didn't know better.

Whatever she was, she had responded to the monkey’s recall signal, and that made her an active Overwatch agent. That warranted her death, but she had been doomed from the start. Simply being Overwatch meant she had to be taken out eventually. That was Reaper’s job.

In his wraith form, not even his footsteps could be heard. She was busy looking at some kind of screen covered with data, completely unsuspecting until the very last moment when he appeared behind her.

“Huh? Who's there?” Mei whirled around. She gasped when she saw him, her hand going to her mouth. “W-who are you? What are you doing in a place like this?”

“Death has come for you.”

“What?” Mei reached for the holster at her side, but Reaper was too fast for her. He grabbed her wrists, pinning her into the table and knocking her communication device to the floor.

She looked so young, compared to an old corpse like him. Reaper had read her case file; she was only just in her thirties when she had been frozen for nine years. She had missed so much. The rift between Overwatch, its disgrace, its fall. She had had nothing to do with it. To her, there were only the glory days. No wonder she still believed in it.

Reaper wanted to draw his guns and end this as quickly as it began, but his hands wouldn't move. He gripped her wrists tighter. She squeaked in pain. Her little voice echoed through the empty room, filling it, filling Reaper’s dead heart.

He liked other people's pain. He couldn't wait to see what noises she would make as she died. He would leave her an empty husk like he left all the others. Her rosy cheeks would no longer have that flush of cold to them. She thought she knew the cold. Reaper would teach her.

But she looked so innocent with those eyes. She had had nothing to do with Overwatch’s sins. She was a relic of its past. He couldn't bear to look at her.

He needed to kill her. Weakness couldn't be tolerated. He would retreat and regather himself. He dropped her and turned to leave, to return again when he could get his bearings.

“Wait! Don't move!” Reaper heard a whirring and then felt a terrible cold. He looked down and saw ice grow around his legs. He pulled at them, but they wouldn't move. The girl ran up to him with a determined look on her face and a strange gun in her hand. “You can't just threaten me and then leave. I don’t like bullies. Why are you here?”

Mei made the mistake of getting too close. Reaper grabbed her by the throat and watched her breath cloud desperately in the air. Her little face scrunched up in pain. It would be so easy to kill her. All he had to do was squeeze.

“S-Snowball!”

Something slammed into Reaper’s face, knocking him to the ground and cracking the ice. His mask and her gun went clattering across the icy ground. He reached for it, hand going over his face, but it was too far away and too late. She had already seen. He scowled, waiting for the inevitable.

It never came. Her eyes widened without a trace of recognition in them. Reaper’s heart skipped a beat. She didn't know who he used to be.

Mei pet a little round robot. It had been the thing that had hit Reaper. “Thank you, Snowball.” She picked up his mask from the floor and knelt in front of Reaper.

“You have been hurt badly,” she said. The ghoulish mask looked so out of place in her hands. “I don't know who you are, but you have been through a lot.” She offered it back to him. “Why did you come here?”

“To kill you,” Reaper growled. He snatched the mask out of her hands and put it back on, where it belonged. Their hands almost touched through both of their gloves. He wondered, for just a split second, if her fingers would have been warm.

Her face lit up into a gentle smile. Smiling in the face of death. “But you were trying to leave.”

He couldn't bear to be smiled at. He lashed out at her and sliced open her cheek with his claws. Her warm blood dripped down her surprised face. He took her cheek into his hand and let it soak into Reaper’s glove. She jerked away and stepped back.

“You’re the Reaper, aren't you?”

So she had heard of him. The world of the future was already getting to her. She needed to die for another reason. To preserve the past that she represented. Reaper’s hands went to his shotgun, once and for all.

“You won't kill me,” said Mei. Her gun was out of reach. Reaper stepped forward and cornered her easily, hulking over her with nearly a foot in height. She raised her little fists. “I will stop you.”

Reaper laughed. He hated the sound of it in his ears. He was a monster now, a creature of nightmares.  _ Her  _ nightmares. She was helpless before him, and yet?

And yet. She ducked between his legs and grabbed for her gun. She held it up and aimed it for Reaper’s chest, which was as far up as she could reach. “You have one chance to get out of here before I freeze you solid.”

Reaper tackled her. They tumbled together on the ground, until he was pinning her in place where she belonged. He twisted her wrist until she let go of the gun. She stared up at him in pain and utter terror.

He could kill her. He  _ should  _ kill her.

He couldn't.

Even through the cold, her body felt so warm against his. He dissolved to mist around her, unable to bear the warmth of her touch, the way she trembled beneath him.

“I will be back for you."

“I am not afraid of you." There was a quiver in her voice and tears in her eyes. As soon as she was free, she grabbed her gun and unloaded it on him, but its icy beam could do nothing against the mists.

Reaper let himself disappear. If only the feeling he had failed her could disappear as well.


End file.
